


falling hot and real

by AlexSeanchai



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Gabriel Agreste's A+ Parenting, Grief/Mourning, Identity Reveal, Ladynoir | Adrien Agreste as Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng as Ladybug, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Podfic Welcome, Romance, Season/Series 03 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 06:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20384992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexSeanchai/pseuds/AlexSeanchai
Summary: The box waited by the right side of her desktop keyboard as it always did, a low cylinder of thin plywood painted an unrelieved black, until one opened it—a riskier task than it looked—to note the gold-tone hinges and latch and, inside the lid, the emerald-green yin-yang. She didn't open it often anymore: she didn't want to see the dark brown hexagon inside, taunting her with red etchings in a balanced dance.The mini Miracle Box was empty, of course. She couldn't wear his inactive ring—too risky; too easily noticed even if on a chain behind a high-collared shirt—and she'd only dared activate it once, and that briefly: Plagg had yelled at her for taking eventhatmuch of a risk.





	falling hot and real

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LilaacStars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilaacStars/gifts), [Keyseeker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keyseeker/gifts).
  * Inspired by [sad!au in which...](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/512611) by buginettez & flightfoot. 

The box waited by the right side of her desktop keyboard as it always did, a low cylinder of thin plywood painted an unrelieved black, until one opened it—a riskier task than it looked—to note the gold-tone hinges and latch and, inside the lid, the emerald-green yin-yang. She didn't open it often anymore: she didn't want to see the dark brown hexagon inside, taunting her with red etchings in a balanced dance.

The mini Miracle Box was empty, of course. She couldn't wear his inactive ring—too risky; too easily noticed even if on a chain behind a high-collared shirt—and she'd only dared activate it once, and that briefly: Plagg had yelled at her for taking even _that_ much of a risk, when Tikki could have told her Plagg could no more tell her his name than Tikki could.

"I know you had to ask," Plagg had continued, "but I don't know what happened either." When she'd asked if Plagg would be all right alone for a while, he'd answered "Try not to worry about me, all right, bug? No, I won't be all right, but it's the Miracle Box—we're none of us alone no matter how hard we try—and you _don't_ want to wield me when you've got Tikki, and it's safer all around if I'm not wandering around without any wielder. Let me back out when you figure out what happened with him, though," he'd added in a low growl. "I want to know who to murder."

Alya could get to the ring whenever she wanted, give or take a couple of enchantments to make sure she was herself and acting of her own volition when she reached for it. So could Nino, and she herself, of course. Just in case. She hadn't mentioned to either of them that if all three died, a week later the magic pocket space her yo-yo could access would spit the ring back out somewhere else: she was aiming for the ruins of the Temple of the Guardians, since it should still have some active defensive magics, but those very wards might be why it wouldn't work. Master Fu might have been able to clarify that, had she been willing to ask. If that failsafe went off, though, she figured she would be a little beyond caring where his ring went, as long as Hawkmoth and Mayura would never be able to find it.

She ran her fingertip around the circle of the yin-yang, then along the curve in between. She was the sunshine of the pair and he the shade, she was certain he would claim, but black was one of her colors, and this green, his alone.

Marinette latched the black box. She had to get to class.

* * *

Adrien was watching a news report on the last akuma attack when Marinette got to the classroom. He paused the video with some reluctance (the recording would keep, though, and it wasn't even his first watch) and took the cheese danish she offered with a grateful look. Not a smile—the freeze-frame was Ladybug struggling to keep a thorned vine from binding her, crimson stains blurring the carmine, black, and white lines of her armor—but not _not_ a smile.

"You don't look so good," Marinette observed.

He turned his phone screen-side down and bit into the danish, giving her a thumbs-up with his free hand.

"Bad night?" she asked, leaning her arms on his desk and tangling her fingers together; the red-and-black-roses tattoo on her left forearm rippled with that motion, as though its white ribbon were fluttering in the wind.

Adrien swallowed. "Saw that before bed," he answered, indicating his phone with the danish. "Got nightmares."

Marinette tilted the phone up, glimpsed the screen, and set it back down. "I'm sorry."

"Not your fault."

"She won. Carapace got her out and then they won."

"I know." He stared down at the back of his phone case, at the three circles he'd etched into the plastic: the ladybug sigil that she signed autographs with, the encircled paw print that he had, and between them a yin-yang, the sunny side speckled with little holes. "She's fine. Her team's fine. Everyone's _fine_. I know that."

Marinette said nothing. Anyone else would have filled the silence with reassuring sound, furiously signifying far less than they thought, less than they wanted him to think; Marinette's quiet spoke volumes.

"I worry about her," Adrien told his phone case. He leaned over to fish a wedge of Camembert out of his messenger bag to eat while he considered how to phrase the next bit: no point letting the cheese go to waste. "She keeps going out there alone."

"She has to," Marinette reminded him. "No one else can do what she can."

"I know." He toyed with the broad silver ring he wore: not the same, never the same, it didn't even look all that similar unless one was more than a meter away. "I wish she'd replace him already. She never used to work alone. This has to be hard on her."

It had to be hard on Marinette, too. Adrien couldn't admit to knowing a damn thing about the Papa-Garou attack or what led up to it—not more than he could have read on the Ladyblog, and Alya still had that one listed as 'Beanstalk Jack' because the Dupain-Cheng household wasn't talking—

—but—

Would it be easier on her (he wondered again, watching the side of her face circle through a series of expressions hardly anyone would notice _weren't_ simply resting bitch face) if Adrien were to ask Marinette out, in hopes of filling the hole in her heart? It would be dishonest and several kinds of unfair, and she probably wouldn't even agree—Adrien would not be the first to ask her out in the past several months, not by far—and Adrien would be a poor substitute for who she actually wanted anyway; of course, so would Marinette (much as he knew he loved her) for who _he_ wanted, but—

"I worry about you, too," Adrien told her.

He didn't really want to find out if Marinette's opinion on the subject matched Ladybug's, anyway. Even to ask her might come too close to breaking his word on the thing Ladybug had most vehemently asked of him.

Marinette nodded, once and sharply, expression firming, and turned to look more fully at him. "I really appreciate that." She was almost smiling.

* * *

Marinette peered around the corner, looking across the street and up to the windows. One was open, the room's occupant leaning on the sill. He probably couldn't see her or Nino, especially in the low evening light, but—

"I wish—" she began, and couldn't finish. Her partner _wasn't_ there. That was the whole problem.

"We don't have to do this tonight," Nino reminded her.

Marinette half shrugged. "No, but we don't want to wait till it's urgent, either." They'd had this argument five times in the planning phase. "And I just—" She swallowed back the tears. Her partner wouldn't want her to cry for him. Not while they had work to do. "I want to get this over with." Tikki patted her cheek reassuringly.

"Spots on, then?" asked Nino.

She glanced around—no one watching; possibly they were in people's viewline, but those would all find something more interesting to look at for a moment or three—and nodded. "Tikki, spots on."

Ladybug launched her yo-yo. Carapace leaped after her.

Adrien backed away from the open window to give her room to perch on the sill. "Ladybug?" he asked, and too much time spent trying to pick apart the micronuances of his every concealed emotion told her his voice was too carefully neutral. "Is something wrong?"

Best to start with honesty. "Not more than usual," Ladybug told him. "May we come in?"

He blinked, gesturing her inside. "We?"

"Carapace came with." She glanced down long enough to wave Carapace to follow her. "I wouldn't be able to do this alone, I'd be a fool to try, and he's both the best-suited skill set and the next most personally invested."

Adrien's eyes widened for one startled moment. Then he smoothed his expression back to that polite mask, a little more closed-off than before.

Behind her, Carapace landed gently on the hardwood. "Evening, Adrien. Pretend I'm not here."

"…I don't understand," said Adrien.

And Ladybug's entire prepared speech had evaporated from her memory. "Don't mind him, Adrien. He's only here in case something goes wrong." Which. "Well. Worse wrong than we're expecting."

Adrien frowned down at her. "Do you need something?"

Her partner back. _Her partner_, not—no matter how precious Adrien was to her—not a discount knockoff.

"Yes, but—"

Adrien waited.

"It doesn't have to be you," Ladybug burst out. "I don't want—" Her throat closed up.

"Whatever you want, Ladybug," Adrien told her, tone gentling; his polite mask was slipping, but behind it he seemed—sad and resigned? "Anything you need."

"I mean it, it doesn't have to be you," Ladybug repeated. Alya'd argued it shouldn't be him anyway. "I don't want you feeling like you don't have a choice about this."

His brow furrowed, then smoothed.

She cut her gaze away from him, away from the spiral staircase Carapace was climbing in order to pretend at giving them privacy. "We didn't have much of a choice," Ladybug said, her throat tight and eyes aching. "I wonder if—"

But she wouldn't believe that of her partner. She couldn't.

"…I have entirely lost track of where to think you're going with this," said Adrien.

Unsurprising. "I'm not explaining it well."

Ladybug opened her yo-yo and drew out the mini Miracle Box with shaking hands. Then stared down at it, unable to draw enough breath to speak.

What she could see of Adrien went very, very still.

She choked back a sob.

"…Ladybug?" asked Adrien, quiet and hesitant. "What is this?"

_We made a promise,_ Ladybug reminded herself.

Really, _she'd_ made a promise, binding them both without asking his consent—but one of them had leaped on the opportunity to be a hero, and one of them had needed convincing. One of them had thrown himself headlong between their city and danger, and one of them hadn't dared. Not till Alya said _the world is watching you_. Not till Alya reminded her the world would judge them both by her alone.

One of them had gotten right back up from their first failure and gone back the next day to do it again, and one of them had tried to run the other way and hadn't wanted to stop. Not till one of Marinette's first two real friends found herself trapped in mortal danger, believing Ladybug could save her. Not till Marinette's other first real friend echoed that belief.

_Trust me on this,_ he'd said. He'd never once flinched from bearing the weight of her promise—_never once_, no matter _what_ Master Fu expected her to believe—and it wasn't a weight she could carry alone.

_We made a promise,_ Ladybug reminded herself. _He'd tell me to do whatever I needed to keep it._

Truthfully, he'd care more—as Adrien had said the other day—about how hard this was on her.

One of them had always been the brave one, and it had never been her.

_—Gods, Chat, I wish you were **here**—_

"You look like you could use a shoulder to cry on," Adrien said softly. "I've got a couple going spare."

"I—I—" Never mind talking, then. Ladybug nodded, hugging herself and looking away.

Adrien moved closer, slowly, as though she were a skittish kitten he didn't want to startle, and wrapped her in a hug.

He was taller than her partner had ever been, but she'd grown a bit since she saw her partner last: she could rest her head on his shoulder just as she could have done her partner's.

Just as she _should_ have done her partner's, far more often than she ever had.

After a long minute of Ladybug trying not to weep into his shirt, Adrien steered them over to his sofa and eased them down to the cushions, settling Ladybug beside him without letting go of her. "What do you need?" he asked, still gentle, still soft. "Because you can cry as long as you want, but I don't really want to be at ground zero for Miss Fortune or Lady Luckless or whoever you'd be as an akuma."

Ladybug snorted, pulling away. "Nobody does. That's why Carapace came."

"—Oh?"

"Yeah." She regarded the mini Miracle Box. "If the purple post-it gets any ideas, Carapace is throwing himself on the grenade so you and I can run."

Adrien stared at her.

"I don't like it either," Ladybug said, shifting nervously. "But there was never any way I was getting through this without being butterfly bait for a while."

"Ladybug—" Adrien visibly swallowed. "I still don't know why you're here."

No, she supposed he wouldn't.

Better to get it over with. The quicker he knew what she was asking, the quicker he could boot her back out the window.

Ladybug swallowed. "Adrien Agreste," she said, extending the box to him and trying not to consider how emerald his eyes were or wonder what hue her partner's had been when _Homo_, not _Felis_, shaped them, "here is the Miraculous of the Black Cat, which grants the power of destruction. You will use it for the greater good."

A moment.

A long moment.

A long, heart-poundingly silent moment.

Adrien shook his head, dazed.

Ladybug withdrew the box. "I'm sorry," she said, both to Adrien and to the ghost of her partner. "I shouldn't have come." She rose.

—He caught her wrist.

"Why did you come?" asked Adrien, low and—

What was that note in his voice?

Ladybug shrugged, unwilling either to stay much longer when he'd refused this or to force herself away. "The whole city's been wondering for months why I'm out there alone now. And—someone—told me the other day he wished I'd find a new partner already." Whether she would ever admit to him who that someone was, she hadn't known; she certainly wouldn't tell him now. "He can't be the first who's thought that."

"…a new partner," Adrien repeated, carefully neutral.

She might as well tell him the bits it was safe for Ladybug to tell a trustworthy civilian; however much she thought wielding a Miraculous might help him, it couldn't if he refused to, but knowing he was trusted—that might. Marinette had been longing to open up to Adrien for months anyway. He'd _noticed_ when something went wrong in her life that she didn't want to talk about. No one else had. Not even Alya, until Alya'd started adding things up in retrospect the day Ladybug had swung into her bedroom, half trying to drown herself in her own tears, and Marinette had pitched the earrings across the room.

"The Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculouses work best as a team," Ladybug told him. "For a lot of reasons. It might have been safer, from the perspective of not letting Hawkmoth win, if we'd brought out the Ladybug alone at the start. Alone or with any of the others we have. But it wouldn't have _worked_."

And no one would ever have seen how amazing her partner was. His life had always sucked, she _knew_ that, it had broken her heart a little every time he seemed reluctant to go home and she'd had to walk away. She couldn't, much though she tried, picture his loved ones as people who loved and appreciated him the way he deserved.

Even she never had. Until she couldn't tell him anymore.

"The—the current situation—you probably noticed we can't keep this up."

Probably, definitely, same difference, right? But that wasn't the only not-quite-true bit of that statement.

"I," Ladybug corrected. "_I_ can't keep this up."

If she was going to tell him all this anyway, she might as well sit back down. It'd be easier not to look at anyone that way.

"I've got Rena Rouge backing me up full-time," she told the red etchings on the box on her knee. "Available, anyway. I don't really want her in any of these fights if I don't need her. Any of them, honestly. Carapace is full-time too, sort of. He has to give his Miraculous back the same as the rest, but that's not—not the same thing. He's best suited to the Turtle, he doesn't want to try to get along with any of the others that—that intimately, and the Turtle has to be on a time-share. For—for reasons."

Nobody wanted to find out what would happen if the bracelet weren't on Master Fu's person for long enough that his body remembered he was more than twice as old as someone born in France today could reasonably expect to live, and half as old again as the oldest documented human had been the day she died.

"I'll have to give the ring to Rena. She won't like it—" Alya had point blank refused it except as a last resort. "—but she knows I don't have many choices. It'll be a lot easier to find a new Fox than another new Cat."

"Another," Adrien repeated.

Who were her other choices? The reasons she and her partner had worked so well together—one of the keys was trust. On several levels: that he had known from moment one how clumsy and anxious she was—that seemed important.

Another was love. Romantic or platonic, it hardly mattered, except to the particular wielders in question, Tikki had assured her. Adrien didn't see her in a romantic light, never had and never would; this was all right, she'd started supposing, because it wouldn't be fair to Adrien to be her second choice anyway. But nor had she ever seen her partner in a romantic light—that she knew of, that she believed when he claimed he knew it—until—

Adrien and Alya. Those were her choices.

"You said no," Ladybug reminded him.

His hand tightened briefly around her wrist, his silver ring catching in the lamplight. "I don't remember saying anything. I'm just—just confused, that's all."

Was he? That made two of them.

"Look at me," Adrien said. "Ladybug. Please. Look at me."

She turned her head without lifting it.

"I don't understand." She couldn't _read_ the intent look in his eyes. "You're trying to replace Chat Noir—and you're asking _me_."

"_I'm not replacing him!_"

Adrien stared.

How often had she told her partner this? "I am not replacing him." Not often enough. "He is _irreplaceable_." Never often enough. "I am _choosing his successor_."

It didn't feel different. But she had to believe it was.

He blinked several times. "But you came to _me_."

"You keep your head in a crisis," Ladybug informed him, straightening, the better to glare down his self-deprecation. "You think quickly. You don't scare easily. You're kind. You're determined. You're hardworking. And I already trust you."

He froze, mouth gaping.

"If you don't want to, that's okay!" She couldn't let him feel forced into this—not like she felt. She couldn't _do_ that to him. "If you want to, but not full-time, more a recurring temporary like Queen Bee, that works too!" Having this Black Cat by her side even _some_ of the time would help a great deal in and of itself. "Adrien—"

She couldn't finish that sentence.

Adrien shook himself, a distressingly feline gesture. "I think I'm missing something. Ladybug—"

He paused, collecting himself.

"Ladybug," he repeated, "what do you think happened to Chat Noir?"

Of course he would ask.

She turned to look up past Adrien at the second level of the room. Carapace came to lean on the railing, dropping the pretense of ignoring them. He would leap down to join them if Ladybug indicated she needed the support, she knew.

The day they first dealt with Volpina, when they noticed the akuma had taken—what must have been an illusion of Adrien all along—out the window, Ladybug had been standing maybe a meter farther back than she was sitting right now. Her partner had been standing maybe a meter farther forward, telling lies about how he knew that was an illusion. The Volpina with the illusionary Adrien had probably been an illusion herself, come to think; the real one had probably hidden until she could get out of the room unseen, then caught up with 'herself' before they had caught up to her.

That fight would have gone better if she'd trusted him.

All these fights would be going better if she'd decided earlier to choose someone to succeed him.

It didn't sound like Adrien was going to answer her until he understood why she needed to ask.

Ladybug braced herself to tell the truth.

"He's dead."

"He's _what_?" Adrien squawked.

"You sound surprised." Paris had been speculating exactly that since about a week after they'd last seen him. "I don't know how he died. Or when. But nothing else makes sense."

"What do you mean?"

Ladybug kept her gaze forward. "If something were going wrong in his life and he knew in plenty of time that he couldn't be here for me anymore, he would have told me," she said, as evenly as she could. "If he didn't find out about it soon enough to talk to me about it, he would at least have warned me. If it happened too suddenly even to warn me, he would have told me afterwards. He would have found a way."

She might get out of here without crying yet. Adrien's breathing sounded different, though—?

"If nothing else he could think of would work, he would have contacted the Ladyblog. Alya would have gotten the message to me."

Alya had checked repeatedly to make sure he had never tried. She'd retuned the spamtrap sensitivities more than once, too, to the dismay of the commenters who then found themselves encountering actual spam the trap hadn't caught.

"He would have told me," Ladybug repeated. "He wouldn't leave me without even saying goodbye. Not—not if—not unless he _couldn't_ even say goodbye."

"…I don't think that's true."

She glared at Adrien, who had the decency to look ashamed. "Who knew him better, you or me?" she demanded, and didn't wait for an answer. "He would never abandon me. The one person who ever knew his name _gave me his ring_. He's dead, Adrien! He's _gone_, and I'll never even—"

Had she thought she could do this without weeping? Why had she thought that?

"I'll never even know his name!"

"Oh," said Adrien, quiet and sad.

"It's all right, though," Ladybug said, choking back a sob. "I loved him. I still do. I always will. He knew it before I did—I didn't want to admit it; he'd be so smug about it and then he'd want to spend more time together and I'd want to let us do that. I'd _want_ to let him closer. And I was already so scared of losing him, Adrien, I was—I already thought I might not survive losing him, and then where would Paris be?"

Adrien was watching her, mouth hanging open, as though this were the most surprising part of the night.

"But I did," Ladybug told him. Told herself. "He died and I survived. I lost him, and I'm still here. And I'm stronger now. It hurts so much that he's gone, and I wish he wasn't, I wish I'd never learned I'm strong enough to outlive him—"

She squeezed her eyes shut, leaking tears, and opened them again.

"But our city needed me stronger, and now I am. He must be glad of that much, wherever he is."

Where _did_ souls go after death? Tikki's arrival in her life had upended every assumption she'd learned growing up in a largely Catholic land. It wasn't a one-way trip—Miraculous Cure had too often ensured death was a temporary state for her to believe there was never any way back—but no one remembered being dead. He couldn't ask anyone to carry her a message from the other side. Or if he had tried, his every messenger had forgotten.

Ladybug swallowed back another rush of tears. "And now I need a Black Cat to stand with me. Will you?"

When he didn't immediately answer, she added, truthfully, "I think he would have liked you."

Without a word, Adrien rose. Ladybug turned to stare after him: Adrien leaving someone to cry when he wasn't who'd upset them, and often when he _was_ and hadn't been told to go, was not at all like Adrien. Carapace glared down from the second level as Adrien got something out of a cabinet to the right of his desk; Ladybug turned to face forward again, through the windows into the black of night, as Adrien returned with—

Was that a wedge of Camembert?

Oh. No, that didn't mean anything. It couldn't. How could it? Adrien had liked Camembert as long as Marinette had known him. That Plagg's food of choice was Camembert and Adrien had some on hand when she came to ask if Adrien would be Plagg's next wielder—

Coincidence, she thought, watching him tug off the silver ring on his right hand and wing it across the room with enough force to topple his wastebasket.

Coincidence. Nothing more.

Adrien took the box with Chat Noir's ring from Ladybug's loose grip and flicked it open with his thumb, shielding his eyes with his cheese-holding hand.

The broad black ring inside sparked with light the same brilliant green as the paw print glowing on the ring's flat face. Adrien squinted through the bright burst, beginning to smile, and when Plagg yawned, he stuffed the Camembert in Plagg's gaping mouth.

"I think you're wrong about one thing," Adrien told Ladybug, sitting back beside her, sliding the plain silvery ring onto his finger. "I think Chat Noir _would_ leave you without saying goodbye. If he thought you _wanted_ him to leave. If he thought he'd done something so badly wrong that you never wanted to see or hear from him again."

Plagg swallowed. "Who said _what_?" he demanded, furious as Ladybug had never seen.

"She thought I was dead, Plagg." Adrien's voice was flat and hard and promised someone would be bleeding. "She thought I was _dead_."

"So did I!" Plagg zipped up to Adrien's cheek, pressing himself close to Adrien in the nearest any tiny god could give to an embrace. "Kitten, so did I!"

"I don't understand," whispered Ladybug. He couldn't—Adrien couldn't—he—

Adrien smiled at her, eyes shining with unshed tears. "Plagg, claws out!"

That was—

That was her partner. That was _Chat Noir_, smiling wetly at her and moving to cradle her face in his armored hand, to caress her damp cheek with one clawed thumb.

_Chat Noir_.

Alive?

—Oh. She was dreaming.

Well, if she were dreaming, she might as well dream big.

His shoulders, she dreamed, were as broad and solid in her embrace as she remembered. His arms around her, as steady and strong. The sweat-like, leather-esque scent of him, as redolent, and his lips on hers, as soft: he stiffened all over for a moment, startled, then threw himself into the kiss with as much passion as she had ever dreamed of, more than she could have dared wish for.

She broke the kiss first, gasping for breath: unfair, that a dream should have such physical limits. Chat's eyes were almost glowing with joy.

"I am so sorry, LB," he whispered. "I thought you didn't want me anymore. I thought the only way you might still let me love you was silently from a distance. I thought—"

He closed his eyes, pressing his forehead to hers.

"You rescued me six times since then, do you realize? And every time, every single time, I wanted to tell you who I used to be. I wanted that so much. But I thought maybe you already knew it was me and you didn't want to say anything. Probably you didn't know and you didn't want to, and—and you were still letting me close to you. You wouldn't do that, if you knew it was _me_."

Chat Noir laughed, a small incredulous sound.

"I felt so dishonest, Bug. So selfish." His tears slid down her cheeks to mingle with her own. "But I thought I was doing exactly what you wanted. I didn't know you didn't even _know_."

It made sense. What a plausible scenario her brain had concocted in order to explain her partner being alive and well and _here_. She must have fallen asleep on Alya's floor, while planning what to say to Adrien if he were unsure about accepting a Miraculous. Now she'd have to take that entire stressful situation from the top, when she asked him for real.

"I missed you so much," Ladybug told him. "I love you so much."

He pulled away far enough to blink bewilderedly down at her.

"You were right all along, Chaton. I should have believed you." Why hadn't she? "I told you I wasn't in love with you so often I believed myself. I wish I hadn't. I don't think you ever knew how important you are to me."

Chat Noir's face fell.

"Definitely dreaming," he muttered, disgusted, and buried his head in her shoulder. "Should've known."

Huh?

"Weird," he added, muffled. "In dreams I don't usually smell anything."

"But I can smell you right now," Ladybug said blankly.

He jerked his head up.

—A knocking on the door.

"Fuck!" whispered Chat Noir. "Claws in—_hide_!"

Plagg darted out of sight: in Adrien's lung, probably. Ladybug—the only thing she could hide behind was this sofa, and that wouldn't help if they came around it—

"Spots off," Ladybug whispered, and Marinette seized Adrien by the back of his head for another heated kiss: disarrange his hair with one hand, rumple his shirt with the other, make sure he looked _thoroughly_ kissed: dazed too, she expected, since he wasn't getting on board fast enough with making sure _she_ looked thoroughly kissed—

A hammering on the door. "Adrien!" called his father.

Adrien pulled away. "What are you doing, Bug?" he whispered.

Marinette glanced up: Carapace was flattened against the second-level floor, difficult enough to see from this angle, never mind from the room's entrances. She yanked the elastic off her left pigtail altogether, then pushed her hands through her hair to leave it in artistic disarray. "Getting caught," she whispered back, with a smile and a wink, and pointed to the door, and ducked.

"_Adrien_!" his father shouted.

Marinette stuffed the empty ring box in her purse, then shoved her blazer half off her shoulders and the hem of her blouse up. Adrien, blushing, drew a centering breath, and stood, and marched fuming to fling open the door.

"What on earth have you been doing in—" M. Agreste's voice halted. "Why do you look half debauched?" he asked, cold as ever.

"I was kind of hoping for all debauched," Adrien retorted, "but I don't see how that's your concern."

"Well," said M. Agreste, voice hard. "She is to leave at once, Adrien. You are forbidden to speak to her."

Chat Noir's home life, Marinette remembered, was a frozen lonely wasteland. Worse than Adrien's, she'd thought more than once before thinking she'd lost him.

Which meant Adrien had been lying to everyone but Ladybug about how bad it was. And she'd wanted to punch Gabriel Agreste badly enough for only what Adrien had been willing to tell Marinette.

"Fuck that noise," Marinette snapped, storming over to join her partner, straightening her clothes and purse as she went. "Adrien, want to go pack an overnight bag?"

M. Agreste stared at her for one disconcerted moment before pursing his lips in a way that suggested he was taking note of every detail of her appearance and judging her for it. "Mademoiselle, you are barred from my house," he ordered, and flicked one hand in a gesture as much dismissive as dismissal. "Go. Adrien, set that down at once."

"If you like," Adrien said, dropping his messenger bag on his bed and rifling through it. "I thought you'd rather know I was home tonight." He stuffed his wallet and phone in his jeans pockets. "Guess not."

"Adrien, you will not leave this room."

Adrien wrapped one arm around Marinette's shoulders, staying clear enough she could finger-comb her hair and secure it into a neat-ish ponytail without elbowing him. "How do you plan to stop me?"

By physical force, judging by how M. Agreste was looming in the doorway. He blinked twice, then frowned down at Marinette. "Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng," he said slowly, and didn't seem to notice the minute way Adrien went rigid.

"I'm surprised you remember me," Marinette said, matching his cool tone.

"Mlle. Dupain, my son lives in the limelight, you must understand." He said 'my son' like he might 'my house keys'. "Any young woman he becomes enamored of will necessarily find herself just as illuminated, with thousands of people searching for any secrets of hers it would profit them to spotlight."

Adrien's hand tightened on her shoulder.

"Don't try to sound as though you're protecting me, M. Agreste," said Marinette.

His eyebrow rose an iota. "The secrets they bring to light need not be true in order to damage such a young woman's reputation. If, for instance, the media learned an aspiring fashion designer were seeking to exploit my son's connections in the industry…"

Marinette snorted. "Well, that's the end of my fashion design career. I don't care. I already have an excellent reputation as a graphic designer. And I make more money that way."

"Good point," said Adrien, and headed for his desk.

"Reputations can suffer," M. Agreste told her, part of his attention on Adrien going through his desk drawer.

Mm-hm. Marinette dropped her tone several degrees. "I trust you are not suggesting it would hurt my future in one artistic field to attach myself to someone who grew up working in another."

"I think you trust a little too easily," Adrien told her, and waved Jagged Stone's _Rock Giant_ CD case at her, smiling. "Can't leave behind the first autograph you ever gave me." He popped open her purse—she felt Tikki dart through the fabric into her torso—and tucked it inside.

"In that case, you want to grab your blue scarf, too." Adrien frowned; she clarified, "The fourteenth birthday present that you _thought_ was from your father."

Adrien snarled without words and whirled toward his closet. "Who the fuck gave you the right to steal her credit?" he demanded over his shoulder.

M. Agreste narrowed his eyes at Marinette. "I am only advising you of your own best interest, Mlle. Dupain. You may otherwise find no one will employ you at all."

Marinette folded her arms, pressing one elbow near Tikki's warmth. "Tell my father you said that, I dare you. I might be able to convince him not to punch your face in."

"Is he threatening your family now?" Adrien asked, sliding his arm around Marinette's waist, the scarf she'd made him clenched in his other hand. "That doesn't seem like a good idea."

"I'm sure he knows it's not." Marinette stared up at Gabriel Agreste, rooting herself in the knowledge that her partner was alive, and here, and he had her back. "I wonder if he has ever heard that a good friend will provide one's alibi, and a best friend will provide one's getaway car. I doubt it; I doubt he's ever had any sort of friend in his life. Where _I_," Marinette told them both, "have more than one friend who would help me commit the perfect murder, no questions asked." Or Ladybug had, but the difference was immaterial. "I could get a dozen more accomplices if I promised them the chance to spit on Adrien's father's grave."

Adrien sighed. "Please don't threaten my father."

"I'm not threatening anyone. _Am_ I, M. Agreste?" She let herself smirk a little. "No more than you have been threatening me. I am only observing that hurting anyone I love is actively suicidal."

Marinette took Adrien's hand, braced herself, and marched forward.

M. Agreste flinched out of their way.

His shock only halted him a moment—good; M. Agreste following them meant no one to see Carapace make his escape. Mme. Sancoeur—did the woman ever go home to sleep?—moved to block their exit. But not fast enough.

They were a third of the way along one of the buildings with the Place des Vosges along its other side when Marinette heard the rev of an engine from inside the Agreste courtyard walls. Adrien pulled her into a nook: "Claws out," he whispered; Chat Noir flipped his baton around in his hand, grinning, and extended it fast enough to vault them both to the roof.

"—Holy shit," said Marinette, and the moment her feet were steady on the rooftop, she seized her partner in a fierce sobbing hug.

Carapace caught up a moment later. "Group hug?" he asked, his grin audible, and barely hesitated before flinging his arms around them both. "Dude. _Dude_."

"Don't tell me you missed me," Chat said, laughing.

"Never," Carapace assured him with faux gravity. "Not a chance."

A beat.

"—Dude, no _wonder_ you've been fucked up for months and wouldn't say why."

Chat snorted. "You heard what I told her, right? I know you were listening—you had to be if you were going to see a butterfly coming in time to get between her and it. I didn't—"

He drew away from them both, taking Marinette's left forearm and turning it for a better look, in what light there was, at her tattoo. "White for mourning," he said, tracing one clawed thumb over the inked ribbon.

Marinette nodded. "Black roses for death. Red roses for true love." She ran her hand up along the black leather-like material protecting his arm. "It seemed to fit."

"She's really missed you," added Carapace.

"She put white in her armor to _mourn_ me, Carapace, I think I got that she missed me?" Chat sounded incredulous. Probably looked incredulous, too; Marinette was scanning the skyline, mapping potential routes. "It might be a while before I believe it?"

"Believe it." Marinette turned crisply back to him. "Now, much as I'd like to send Carapace home so we can sneak us some cheesecake and cuddle in my bed for the rest of ever—" Was Chat _purring_? "—my place is probably the first place M. Agreste will look for you." She grinned. "Want to go startle the shit out of Rena Rouge?"

"—I love you so much," Chat told her, tear tracks gleaming on his cheeks.

"I heard that rumor," Marinette said, smirking, and leaned up on tiptoe for a quick light kiss. "Spots on!"

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Dreamwidth](https://alexseanchai.dreamwidth.org/) and [Tumblr](https://alexseanchai.tumblr.com/).


End file.
